News Brief
US Dollar bills. (Unsplash/Sharon McCutcheon)
India has attracted total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow of $67.54 billion during April to December 2020, the highest ever for the first ninth months of a financial year and 22 per cent higher as compared to $55.14 billion received in the first ninth months of 2019-20, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said on Thursday (4 March).
The ministry further said that the FDI equity inflow during the first nine months of FY21 grew by 40 per cent to $51.47 billion compared to $36.77 billion in the corresponding period a year ago.
According to the ministry, the measures taken by the government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country.
In December 2020, the FDI inflow showed positive growth of 24 per cent and rose to $9.22 billion compared to $7.46 billion in the same month last year.
FDI is a major driver of economic growth and an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of India. It has been the endeavor of the government to put in place an enabling and investor friendly FDI policy, the Commerce Ministry said.
The intent all this while has been to make the FDI policy more investor friendly and remove the policy bottlenecks that have been hindering the investment inflows into the country. The steps taken in this direction during the last six and a half years have borne fruit, as is evident from the ever-increasing volumes of FDI inflows being received into the country, it said.